32 Intel Z77 motherboards tested with Ivy Bridge processors

What's the best motherboard for your Ivy Bridge system?

By Koen CrijnsTuesday 3 July 2012 05:59

Energy consumption

What's more interesting than performance is the energy consumption, and we did three tests in this area. The chart at the top shows the idle usage on the Windows desktop, the average over a five-minute period. The second chart shows the average usage during a complete run of 3DMark Vantage on the integrated GPU. The third chart shows the maximum energy consumption during Cinebench 11.5.

There are some larger differences here, particularly for idle usage. The least efficient board uses twice as much as the most energy-efficient one. Since every chip on a motherboard needs power, the more features there are the higher the usage will be. Still, some manufacturers have optimised their board better than others.